


My Home And Native Land

by copperbadge



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Canada, Cultural Differences, Don't touch Ronon's Blaster, Gen, POV Character of Color, Shakespeare, So Much Canada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-27
Updated: 2008-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon's friendship with Chuck, the head Gate Tech of the Atlantis mission, leads him to discover the strange and alien ways of Canadians and helps him lay his past to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also available as [a podfic](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/my-home-and-native-land-audiobook)!

 

_In Days of yore,_  
 _From Britain's shore_  
 _Wolfe the dauntless hero came_  
 _And planted firm Britannia's flag_  
 _On Canada's fair domain._

Ronon Dex was a Specialist in the Satedan army, an officer, and an educated man in a reasonably advanced society.

He was trained in military protocol, much similar to the code of conduct held by the Marines and Air Force officers on Atlantis. He had been offworld a handful of times as part of maneuvers before his army fell, and he had been trained in Gate Recon though he'd never officially been assigned. He was also one of those rare souls in whom the military had not quashed the urge to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

So, when he returned from his first offworld mission with the Atlanteans he naturally took the notebook out of his pocket, tore off the small sheet of paper, scrawled his name and the date on the top, and handed it to the gate tech, the young one who wore the same tribal insignia as McKay but didn't talk half so much (growing up with McKay would probably do that to anyone).

"What's this?" the gate tech asked, studying it.

"Gatesheet," Ronon answered.

"Yeah, but what is it?" the tech asked again. "I mean I can see the symbols, but what's the rest?"

Ronon belatedly realised it was in Satedan.

"Um," he said. "It's a log of all the known worlds Olesia does trade or war with."

The tech's eyebrows shot up. "Where'd you get it?"

Ronon stared at him. "I asked."

They regarded each other for a few seconds before Ronon realised this was what he'd started to think of as _absentee protocol_ \-- things the Marines should be doing and weren't. Like the ritual tattooing and the basic knife-training.

"When you go through a gate you ask them what addresses they know," he explained, feeling kindly towards the ignorant tech. "You note 'em down and give 'em to the tech so they can track 'em."

"Oh. Yeah, we've never done that," the tech said, but not dismissively -- more like he was considering something.

"You should," Ronon said, because, well, duh.

"It's a good idea. Why'd you write it in -- oh, guess you can't write English, eh?"

Ronon crossed his arms.

"Not that you need to. Except probably they're going to want mission reports from you, but..." the tech trailed off thoughtfully. "Can I keep this for a few days?"

"You're supposed to keep it," Ronon pointed out. "And put your name on the sheet and the time you received it."

The tech nodded and took the pen Ronon offered (man, Atlanteans, never fuckin' prepared) and scrawled _Charles Morse_ in the corner, then noted the time. He carefully handed the pen back and set the piece of paper next to the DHD, smoothing it out.

***

Turned out they did want a mission report from him, which he'd be happy to give written or oral except, you know, they didn't want oral and he didn't write in English. Still, he was resourceful, and if he couldn't write it then he'd have to find someone to write it for him. The fastest typist he knew was McKay, and McKay was pretty easily intimidated by a couple of grunts and the knowledge of just how many knives Ronon had concealed about his person (17 on standby; 24 for missions; 9 on his day off).

He tracked McKay down and loomed efficiently until McKay started bitching about what a waste of time it was to make a scientist act like a secretary. McKay shut up when Ronon started talking, though, and his fingers began to click the keys automatically, his face growing less and less annoyed and more thoughtful as Ronon succinctly outlined the events on-planet, the resources expended, the injuries sustained, and any relevant information the Olesians had let slip.

"You really were a soldier," McKay asked, when it was done and sent to Sheppard for vetting before Dr. Weir got it.

"Really am," Ronon replied, and went on his way with the satisfaction of a job well done.

He didn't see the gate tech again until they were kitting up for their next mission, supposedly escorting Teyla somewhere boring and diplomatic. He privately thought she didn't need much escort, but it was a chance to get offworld and McKay and Sheppard were pretty funny when they were bored. While Teyla did the negotiating and Sheppard struck his "I could menace you at any minute" pose and McKay wandered around with his energy-detector out, Ronon ambled down to the central archive, then to the tavern, then to the market square, and came back with three pages of gate addresses. This time Charles Morse was prepared; he had a pen, took the pages without question, signed his name and the time.

"That reminds me," he said, tucking the pages in an official-looking folder. "I'm off-duty in two hours. Can you come translate these for me? Just read them aloud and -- "

"Yeah, I know," Ronon said.

"Oh. Oh, of course you would," Charles Morse replied, grinning. "Anyway, I'll be in the mess, stop by? Have some not-quite-porkchops, translate for me?"

"Sure," Ronon shrugged.

"Cool."

"Ronon," Dr. Beckett called from the gateroom floor. "If you're done flirting, I would like to do the post-mission examination sometime this afternoon."

A couple of the other techs giggled and Charles Morse grinned, even as the tips of his ears turned red. Earthers were really immature.

***

He found Charles Morse sitting at one of the long tables, at the start of dinner when there weren't many people around yet. He tossed his tray down and slid into the seat, grunting a greeting as the tech looked up. He held out his notebook.

"So that's your name," he said, pointing to a reasonable approximation of the English _Charles Morse_. English had a truly hideous and annoying set of ideograms. "How do you say it?"

"Charles Morse," the tech replied. "But everyone calls me Chuck."

"Kay. Gimme the pages."

Chuck opened the folder and passed the gatesheets back to him, including the old one. He picked up a tablet from the chair next to him and offered that as well.

"I've put in all the dialing codes," he said, pointing to a display on the tablet. "What I was thinking is, once I know what all this is," a gesture at the Satedan scrawl next to the codes, "I'll put together something to show Dr. Weir. She's already said I can make a presentation at the next staff meeting."

"Cool," Ronon answered, and started to read. "PXR-786..."

He trailed off after only a few sentences about how the inabitants of PXR-786, who called themselves Kelari, were expert weavers. Chuck was looking at his face but one of his hands was dancing over the tablet's surface, keying the information in with even more speed than Dr. McKay.

"You type one-handed," he observed, and Chuck unaccountably laughed.

"Well, it's faster when you've got to dial with your other. It's a one-handed keyboard, see? If I hit the alt key, it swaps over. Took some training, but I broke my wrist at university and had to learn then anyway."

"Fight?" Ronon asked.

"Uh, no." Chuck looked embarrassed. "I was uh. Showing off, in, uh, a tree."

Ronon raised an eyebrow.

"And kinda fell out of it. _Anyway_ , keep going."

Ronon read out the rest of the notes he'd made, which didn't take long; most of the addresses didn't have more than a few sentences attached. When he was done, Chuck tapped on the screen to save and clear it, and attacked his dessert with something much resembling McKay's enthusiasm. Well, that figured.

"So," Ronon said, as Chuck spooned the crumbly fruit pie into his mouth. "Is your whole tribe pacifist, or what?"

"Tribe?" Chuck asked around a mouthful of syrup and fruit. Ronon nodded at the insignia on his shoulder. "Oh! It's a country, not a tribe. Canada. We're not pacifists, we just didn't send any soldiers."

"McKay's Canadan."

"Canadian, yeah. Try not to judge us based on Rodney McKay," Chuck added with a grimace. "This..." he tapped the flag with a finger, "It's our national symbol. It's a leaf."

"Yeah, I got that," Ronon said drily.

"Does -- uh, I mean, did...your country..."

"Sateda."

"Sateda, did it have a flag?"

"The tribes had pennants," Ronon said absently. "And tattoos."

"Tattoos? Is that...?" Chuck gestured to the place on his throat that matched Ronon's.

"S'my regiment," Ronon said.

"And your arm?" Chuck indicated the rows of neat triangles.

"Kills."

Chuck looked suitably impressed. "Wraith?"

"Sometimes. Haven't kept it up. I should add what's missing."

"Cool. Most of the Marines who have tattoos have dumb ones, like those fake curly things or Semper Fi in really ugly lettering."

"Semper Fi?"

"It's their motto. Semper Fidelis. Always faithful."

"To what?"

"Dunno," Chuck chewed thoughtfully. "America, I guess. That's their country. And Colonel Sheppard's, too. But like, you have a tattoo for your tribe?"

"Uh-huh."

"Where?" Chuck asked, lowering his voice.

"My ass," Ronon said, just to see what kind of reaction it got. Chuck choked on his food, looked at him, and then scowled.

"You so do not have your sacred tribal tattoo on your _ass_ , Dex," he said.

Ronon tugged the collar of his shirt down and pointed it out, just below his clavicle. Chuck studied it with clinical interest, then nodded, satisfied.

"We don't really have tribes, I guess," he said.

"How d'you know where you came from?"

Chuck paused.

"That's a good question," he said.

***

Ronon had not been at all surprised when he was asked to join the Senior Staff in their weekly meetings. After all, he represented a military point of view, which meant Sheppard would be happy to have him as backup, and he was a member of the lead exploration team. It was his right.

He tried not to be bored, because it was an honour as well as a right, but man, these people could talk. He knew McKay felt the same way, despite McKay himself being Head Talker Of Talk City, Talkingdom, but at least McKay talked fast.

The next meeting promised to be at least interesting, when he arrived and saw Chuck sitting on the edge of one of the seats, fiddling nervously with the tablet in front of him. He could relate; it was tough to be the low-ranking officer, and Satedan regiments hadn't encouraged original thought or underlings making suggestions any more than any other military institution did.

"All right," Dr. Weir said, as everyone settled down for the meeting. "Everybody here, everybody awake. Let's try to make this quick. Chuck, you have a presentation for us?"

Chuck flinched a little, poor kid, and stood up. "Yeah, I..." he clicked a button on the tablet and the screen behind him lit up.

"Gate addresses?" McKay asked. "Where'd you find those?"

"McKay," Dr. Weir said warningly.

"I didn't find them, actually," Chuck said. "I've been building a database of unvisited planets, based on some recon Colonel Sheppard's team brought back."

"When did we do recon?" Sheppard asked.

"Specialist Dex has been retrieving gate addresses from local populations," Chuck said smoothly, as if this part he'd prepared ahead of time.

It was cool to hear that again, _Specialist Dex_.

"Ronon?" Sheppard asked.

"Yeah," Ronon said.

"Apparently in the Satedan military it was standard procedure to record gate addresses from other worlds, with notes on traders and who was at war with whom, that kind of thing," Chuck continued. "Specialist Dex brought back several addresses and passed them off to me for signature."

"Well, that's....less than stupid," McKay said, sounding surprised.

"I thought it was a pretty good idea, so I'd like to propose..." Chuck looked anxiously at Dr. Weir. "I'd like to propose that we make it a standard practice for all exploration teams. It doesn't have to be a requirement, just, if someone has some spare time, they can talk to the locals and get some notes. I'll be in charge of building the database, and my deck team can prepare the paperwork. As you can see..." he began flicking through database entries. "Specialist Dex and I have already built the prototype filing system. I think it could be an enormous asset to the mission. We'll cross-reference with the main planetary database, of course."

"What about misinformation? Outdated information?" Sheppard asked.

"That's a risk, of course, but it's not as though we're acting on the information. It's just supplimentary, in case we need it. And it'll give us an organised way to begin investigating other planets when the teams have some downtime. Each offworld team will need to appoint someone to recon, preferably someone who writes in English -- most of my people have a second language but we all have English."

"You and Ronon cooked this up?" Sheppard said, glancing at Ronon, who tried to look modest.

"Mostly Specialist Dex," Chuck answered. "I just did the programming."

"Seems pretty smart to me," Dr. Weir said. "Colonel?"

"I got no problems. Ronon, you want to be our recon go-to guy?"

"Sure," Ronon said. "I can train some other people too."

"Settled, then. Chuck, draw up some guidelines and protocols, work with Ronon."

Chuck's smile broke over his face, equal parts triumphant and relieved. And that was another thing about Earthers, they couldn't keep a poker face to save their lives. Except Sheppard, but he was practically a Satedan soul anyway.

"Thank you, Dr. Weir. Colonel, Doctors, Specialist Dex," he said, nodding to everyone in turn, and bolted from the room.

After the meeting, Ronon wandered up to the gateroom, where Chuck was supervising repairs on a MALP that had encountered a little unfriendly attention offworld.

"So I gotta file a mission report, Teyla's all over my ass about it," he opened, which made Chuck grin. The rest of the techs working on the MALP looked like they would rather be anywhere else, which was not an unfamiliar look to Ronon. "Can't type in English."

"Want me to type it for you?" Chuck said. One of his techs looked at him like he was insane.

"I could pay you. Dr. Weir says I get paid now," Ronon shrugged.

"Step into my parlor," Chuck said, leading him away from the MALP repairs and up to the console deck. "You don't have to pay me, I mean, it probably won't take long, right? And you'd better clear it with Colonel Sheppard, I'm not sure I have security clearance for some of the stuff you could tell me."

"Sure," Ronon said. "That mean you'll do it?"

"Yeah, sounds interesting. I'll teach you how too, if you want. Tell you what," Chuck snapped his fingers and pointed at him, and seriously, Canada might as well be a tribe, Chuck was totally related to McKay somehow, Ronon knew it. "I'll teach you to write in English, you teach me how to do that awesome thing with your blaster."

"Shoot people?" Ronon asked.

"No, the twirly thing. You know. When you show off in the gateroom to mess with Sheppard."

Ronon grinned. "You can't touch my gun, Chuck."

"I'll make a mock-up like they do for the cadet corps back home."

"You don't let your cadets handle real guns? How do you weed out the ones who can't duck fast enough?"

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "You're fucking with me, aren't you."

"Just a little."

***

"This is lame," Ronon said, four days later. "English is really ugly."

"Well, you can learn English or you can just give me blaster lessons for the rest of time in return for typing up your reports. Someday I'm going to get good enough you'll have to let me try the real thing," Chuck said, crossing his arms.

"Yeah," Ronon agreed. " _That's_ gonna happen."

"So, come on. English has twenty-six letters."

"Satedan has forty."

"It's not the size of the alphabet, it's how you use it," Chuck said, which was probably some other Earther joke Ronon was missing out on. He made a mental note to ask Sheppard about it, because Sheppard got totally messed up when he asked about Earth humour. "Do you know any of these?"

Ronon eyed the two neat rows of letters. "They're out of order."

Chuck turned to the letters.

"That's not how they're set up on your keyboard," Ronon explained. "This one goes first," he said, pointing to the circle with the line through it, which bore the faintest of resemblances to the Satedan third vowel.

"Um. So, we'll, let's table the whole touch-typing concept for a minute, I'll explain that one later," Chuck said. "They're in the right order the way we learn them as kids."

"This is gonna be really bad, isn't it?" Ronon asked. Chuck sighed.

"Probably," he said. "But I'm Canadian, I'll get through it."

***

"So, there's no actual Engl anymore?" Ronon asked, standing in the empty firing range and watching Chuck assemble a mocked-up wooden blaster model. He'd give Earth this: their people knew how to build stuff.

"As in, the place English derives from? Well, we have England," Chuck said. "Canada used to be part of Great Britain, like England was. It was an empire."

"So you were conquered."

"Uh, we settled there. Though, yeah, sort of," Chuck said. "It's complicated. Come on, show me some twirling."

Ronon rolled his eyes and took out his blaster, showing Chuck how to hold it. The Canadian mimicked his movements clumsily.

"I still say it's pretty ugly," he said, and Chuck snapped his finger in the fake-blaster's hinge.

"English is one of the most beautiful languages in the world," he said around his finger, sucking the pinched part.

"Yeah, but that's just one world."

"English is awesome, and you can't convince me otherwise," Chuck insisted, trying the simple half-flip again. "Ow, damn!"

Ronon rolled his eyes and held out his hand, showing the loose grip.

"Oh, gotcha. Anyway, English is great," Chuck insisted, managing not to maim himself with the blaster this time.

"Prove it."

"Prove Satedan's any better!"

Ronon triple-flipped the barrel. Chuck rolled his eyes.

"Okay, whatever," Chuck said. "Your world was pretty military, right? You must have like, epics and things."

"We had our share."

"Well, English has its share too. Okay, okay, listen to this," Chuck said, focusing on the blaster as he talked. Ronon double-flipped, and Chuck tried and dropped it before bouncing up again, tossing the model in his hand to get a better feel for it.

Ronon was totally unprepared for the words coming out of Chuck's mouth, words that he heard in Satedan but with a strange roll and cadence that was pure English.

"It little profits that an idle king, by this still hearth, among these barren crags, match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole unequal laws unto a savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those that loved me, and alone," Chuck recited, then swore when he caught himself in the hinge again.

"Whoa," Ronon said. It seemed to fulfill the requirements. Chuck looked up, laughed.

"That's Tennyson. Famous poet. Had to memorise it for grade ten English." He took a deep breath and watched as Ronon demonstrated the half-flip twist, talking through it. Ronon listened, hands moving idly.

"...and drunk delight of battle with my peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause -- dammit!"

"Here," Ronon said, and took Chuck's hands off the model, showing him how to bend his finger in the trigger-guard for a proper spin as Chuck kept talking.

"...death closes all: -- thanks, I got it -- but something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with Gods..."

It was probably best to keep him talking; you didn't have to think about fighting or movement, you just taught your muscles to go. Even as he realised his own shoulders were clenching as the words poured out of the Canadian's mouth.

"...tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Chuck grinned at him, executed a perfect single flip with a spin, and bowed.

"Is all your poetry like that?" Ronon asked.

_We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven..._ yeah, he could relate.

"The good stuff," Chuck said. "Oh, you mean about war and kings? Lots of it is."

"Okay," Ronon said. "You can still teach me English."

***

Ronon ate with his team most of the time, and he spent enough time learning the stupid alphabet with Chuck that he didn't really think the guy wanted him hanging around at meals, too. McKay, he soon discovered, had absolutely no use for poetry of any kind, and Sheppard was pretty illiterate on the subject. Dr. Weir sometimes ate with them, but it wasn't polite to pepper the mission head with questions or unnecessary speech, and besides she creeped him out, so he didn't ask her. Sometimes Dr. Beckett would sit with them, usually if McKay invited him, and he was pretty cool about it.

"I don't know if you hear it when I talk," Beckett said, "but I don't speak the same as John and Rodney."

"Yeah, it sounds different," Ronon said.

"Well, that's because I'm Scots, see, and from a different part of the world."

"I just figured it wasn't your first language. Like Dr. Zelenka."

"No, it's a dialect. And," Beckett continued, "this is how English is _supposed_ to sound."

"Oh, that is -- " McKay began, but Beckett held up a hand. He was one of like three people who could shut McKay up.

"This is the accent that Shakespeare wrote for."

"It is so not!" McKay protested.

"Close enough! Now, listen to this," Beckett sat back and rolled the words out with relish. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as _modest stillness and humility_ ," with a sidelong look at McKay, "but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; then lend the eye a terrible aspect -- and there's a bit with a cannon, I think, comes next...right, the next I know is: For there is none of you so mean and base, that hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon the charge, cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"

Applause broke out from a nearby table. Beckett nodded graciously to them. Ronon looked to his left; Sheppard was sitting, fork poised in one hand, his breathing a little quicker than normal. Well, naturally; Sheppard was a soldier too.

Still, come on, it was only words. He'd heard better from Chuck.

"Do you guys only have poems about war?" Ronon asked.

Everyone blinked at him.

"No, there's love poems and such," Beckett said cautiously. "Shakespeare wrote a fair deal of those, too."

"He sounds pretty cool."

"Pretty cool," Beckett echoed faintly. "Yes, well. I suppose so."

Ronon lingered after the others had gone, McKay to do something science-y with science, Sheppard trailing after him as always, Teyla to beat up Marines with sticks, and Beckett to do whatever it was "Scots" people did in their time off.

He saw Chuck at a nearby table with a couple of Marines and two other gate techs; when he nodded a greeting, the others in the group hunched over and spoke in low voices, like he couldn't hear them or something. Nothing really that extraordinary; he was used to being talked about by now, and while a footsoldier like the Marines were could pick a fight, Ronon was a Specialist and above petty private insults.

"Seriously, I think he's going to bite me."

"Nah, Sheppard's got him paper trained."

"You guys are assholes," that was Chuck. "Ronon's good people."

"He's like nine feet tall," one of the Marines said.

"Is he?" Chuck asked. "Hadn't noticed."

"Seriously, should he be allowed to just wander around? I hear he keeps knives in his hair," one of the techs said.

"Well, he's got the hair for it," Chuck observed. "Who cares? He's not going to knife you in the bathroom, Mendelson. He's cool."

"Cool."

"Yeah, he's not a moron, and he can probably hear you, by the way," Chuck said. The rest of the group looked up at him with almost comical unity. He gave them a small wave and a feral grin.

"Oh man, oh man," the one who'd made the remark about "Sheppard had him trained" groaned.

"Relax. If the big bad Satedan scares you, you can hide behind me. I told you, he's cool, there's nothing to be afraid of," Chuck continued. "He's not like a barbarian or anything, he had the same boot camp you did, probably."

"So are you dating or what?" one of the techs asked, with a much nastier tone than polite inquiry required. Chuck rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, Annie, I can't have any other motivation for hanging out with him than to get into his pants. It's not like he has interesting things to say or useful contributions to -- oh wait! That's right, that database you think is the best thing since ENIAC, didn't he come up with that?"

Ronon grinned into his dessert.

"Besides, he's on Sheppard's offworld team. Look at that team. You think the military leader of Atlantis picked McKay for his people skills and Teyla for her tits and Ronon for being nine feet tall?"

"He definitely didn't pick Teyla for her tits," one of the Marines said, and Ronon looked sidelong in time to catch a rude gesture; apparently he wasn't the only one who'd noticed that the Colonel didn't pay much attention to tits.

"McKay's good with the machines," one of the techs suggested.

"McKay's a badass and the only reason you don't know it is you're never on duty when they come in hot. The team has Sheppard and Teyla besides, they don't need more brawn. Ronon's smart, he knows where to look and when. Sheppard's got layers, he wants guys with layers on his team."

"Are you sure you don't want to get in _Sheppard's_ pants?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Here may it wave,_  
 _Our boast, our pride_  
 _And joined in love together,_  
 _The thistle, shamrock, rose entwined,_  
 _The Maple Leaf Forever._

Nobody really understood how Gate translation worked, though he'd heard McKay give an annoyed speech about Universal Translators and how the Gate didn't even seem to use science, at least Star Trek put in the _effort_ , like ten thousand times. It was just that if you passed through the Gate, when you came out the other side you were speaking their language. Or, yours, but it sounded to them like theirs.

It accounted for dialect and accent, which amused Ronon; Zelenka's English sounded to him like High Satedan, the language used in law courts and at the capitol, the accent of a highly cultured man. Beckett's sounded like a working class drawl from the south of the city, and while McKay and Sheppard and Chuck all sounded vaguely alike, Sheppard's had a note of childish slang to it, as if he'd grown up without much parental supervision. It only showed up when he was really annoyed, though, or trying to bait McKay.

Ronon found out, as the lessons went on, that while you couldn't read another language you could convert it if you knew the lettering; intellectually he knew that if he sounded out an English word like I-S-L-A-N-D he should have to know what the word meant, but something tripped between eyes and brain and he found himself thinking the Satedan word, _bhrai_.

It made the lessons go fast, faster even than he'd anticipated and much faster than Chuck had. He didn't think Chuck noticed, even after they moved from books to direct conversation, tapping out messages to each other on a pair of linked laptops. It was -- weird, really; Chuck asked him about missions and he asked Chuck about Gate activity and other teams' experiences departing or returning. They never talked about Canada or Sateda, or anything at all personal, and Ronon just thought that they'd take a couple more months and he'd be good when Chuck leaned back from the laptop one day and cocked an eyebrow at him.

"You have a photographic memory, don't you?" he asked.

Ronon grunted. "It's good enough."

"It's pretty detailed."

"Yeah, well. Gotta know stuff," Ronon said with a shrug, uncertain how to explain; he remembered a lot, he'd always been top of his class at the training schools but, when you're running from someone who wants to eat you and can find you pretty easily, being able to remember where you are and what Gate addresses are safe and which one leads where was an absolute necessity. Remember or die.

"That must have been a big help when you were..." Chuck sketched a shape in the air, a circle, which was apparently supposed to mean _I don't want to talk about it because it might piss you off and you're huge and dangerous, but hey, just trying to bond here_.

"It helped," Ronon said. "We done?"

"Sure, if you want," Chuck answered, giving him a confused look. "Got your reading for the week?"

Ronon flashed him the edge of a glossy Earther magazine. Most of the reading material in the city was jargon-filled scientific journals, trashy romance novels (Chuck rejected those out of hand and Ronon agreed; they had similar on Sateda and just, no), or Sheppard's infamous Russian novel, which Chuck said had stupid complex compound sentences.

So he'd asked the Marines for reading material, and they had obligingly provided.

"Strictly for the articles," Chuck said, which is what the Marine had said when he passed him the magazine.

"If I wanted to look at tits all day I'd just go back to Planet Naked," Ronon replied, which is what Sheppard had taken to calling the Planet We Don't Tell The Marines About and McKay had referred to as That's Where I'm Moving When I Retire. Teyla, predictably, had gone on about cultural understanding and tropical climates and sucked the fun right out of toplessness. She was right, of course, but it was annoying that he had to feel bad every time he made a joke about Planet Naked.

Chuck waved him on with a laugh, and Ronon ambled down to the labs, because if asking Sheppard to explain Earther humour was funny, asking McKay to explain Earther sex humour ought to be _awesome_.

***

By the time Ronon was typing his own mission reports (very, very slowly, and often with Chuck looking over his shoulder to correct spelling) it had been nearly eight months since he'd arrived on Atlantis. It was also coming up on July, Earth time, which apparently involved a two-week celebration of nationalism and independence. From each other, or something.

As Ronon understood it, the Canadians opened the festivities on the first, the United States...ians? United Statesers? Chuck had said it was stupid to call them Americans when hello, they shared the continent with two other countries -- anyway, the United States carried the banner through whatever weekend came next, the Argentinians joined on the ninth, and the French closed with elegance and pastry on the fourteenth.

It wasn't really any business of his and it clearly baffled Teyla as much as it did him, all this celebration over being who you were, when you so clearly were who you were anyway. So, he ignored it.

Right up until the moment when Chuck and McKay showed up in the sparring room and dragged him almost physically away from training and all but frogmarched him into the mess kitchen at three in the afternoon.

"It's almost July first," Chuck said, as they entered the kitchen. The regular staff was nowhere in sight; Sheppard and Teyla were there, both looking perplexed, and a handful of others, only some of whom he recognised. All of them were wearing the Canadian insignia, though.

The room smelled like frying things; a huge pot was sitting on the heating unit, and Sheppard, incongruously, was chopping up what looked like cheese under the watchful eyes of the Canadians.

McKay hurried over to a smaller pot on another heating unit, picking up a whisk and briskly stirring whatever-it-was, some dark syrupy liquid. Chuck plucked a colander off the counter and went to the pots on the stove, examining them with all the conscientiousness he normally reserved for Gate maintenance and MALP repairs. Someone else began setting out plates.

"Chuck?" McKay asked, with his Have you fixed it yet, imbecile? voice.

"Just about ready," Chuck said, lifting the pot off the stove and pouring it over the colander, which was set on another pot. Ronon recognised what he was cooking, now; he was draining the "french fries", similar to a Satedan dish made with roots and a thick batter.

"You want to tell us what the hell this is about? I'm indentured labour, here," Sheppard complained.

"Ladies, gentlemen, honoured guests," McKay said pompously, as Chuck began to dole the hot fries onto plates. "We are gathered today to celebrate the formation of Canada as a federated constitutional -- "

"Oh my god, how long did you practice this speech?" one of the women interrupted. McKay looked annoyed.

"Fine. Happy Canada day," he said, as Chuck scooped piles of the chopped cheese into his hands and topped the fries with them. "Have some poutine."

He picked up the pan he'd been stirring and began spooning the whatever-it-was over the top of each plate. Ronon looked on in faint horror, because _what was he doing to the fries?_

"I have not...encountered a dish such as this," Teyla said, as McKay offered her the first plate. Chuck shoved one at Ronon, grinning.

"Very traditional Canadian dish," Chuck told her. "I mean, it should be cheese curds, not cheese itself, but they have to be fresh, and we're kind of a long ways from the nearest Loblaw's."

Sheppard was already inhaling his, making approving noises around a mouthful of fries and cheese. Ronon managed to get a fair amount of cheese and fries between his fingers and shoveled it into his mouth, the way McKay was doing; aha, the stuff on top was gravy.

"S'good," he said. Chuck beamed.

"It's foul," one of the other Canadians said, picking at his.

"It's Canadian, it's good for you," McKay retorted. Then, with a glance at Teyla, "Okay, it's not good for you, but -- "

"Keeps you warm on those long Edmonton nights?" Sheppard suggested, and McKay rolled his eyes.

"Listen, how many times do I have to draw you this map? Toronto is here," McKay said, jabbing a finger in the air. "Edmonton is waaaaaay over here," another jab, as far away as his arm would stretch, "And I don't care if you were stationed in Calgary for some godforsaken training mission, you were nowhere near Toronto in any way, shape, or form."

Sheppard just shrugged. "S'pretty close at mach-2."

"We are pleased to share this celebration with you," Teyla broke in, with her best _talking to idiots on other planets_ smile. "I am certain that John and Ronon and I feel very welcomed by your...Canadian generosity."

"When do we get to learn the secret handshake?" Sheppard asked.

"Learn the offside rule in hockey and legalise gay marriage first," McKay replied.

"Aww, Rodney, was that a proposal?"

McKay's face flushed, and Ronon tried to make it look like he was laughing along with the other Canadians rather than at McKay's total cluelessness. Then a thought occurred to him, and he frowned.

"We're not like, official Canadians now, right?" he said. "Cause we've done this kind of thing offworld and then they think we're related or something, and Canada sounds cool and all, but..."

"Honourary Canadians," McKay said. "Except Sheppard."

"You can be Canadian whenever you want," Chuck said to Ronon. "You just have to learn the national anthem."

"Oh god..." Sheppard tilted his head to the heavens, but it was too late; three of the Canadians had burst into song, and the rest joined in quickly.

"O Canada, our home and native land, true patriot love of all thy sons command!"

Teyla was laughing helplessly at Sheppard's face and probably at McKay, who had a surprisingly good tenor and was conducting with a gravy-drenched french fry.

"With glowing hearts we see thee rise, the True North strong and free! From far and wide, o Canada, we stand on guard for thee!"

Chuck had joined in, completely off-key, and Ronon didn't know the words but it didn't seem like he needed to. Everyone else was happy and the poutine was pretty good and someone was singing a national anthem again, even if it wasn't his.

It was kind of cool. If you liked that sort of thing.

***

Ronon found English lessons with Chuck to be soothing, in a strange way; even after he was pretty much totally literate, they'd seek each other out once or twice a week and sit in the mess tapping messages to each other on their tablets. It was good typing practice anyway, and Chuck said if he wanted he'd show him the one-hand keyboard method so that he could type while, say, shooting bad guys with his blaster.

The blaster-spinning lessons had become almost a bone of contention, because clearly Chuck was practicing without him. He was almost as fast as Ronon by the time a year had passed, though that didn't really mean anything. His blaster wasn't real, and it wasn't balanced like the real thing because Ronon didn't let anyone touch his guns. It wasn't that he thought Chuck would accidentally shoot himself, it was just that they were his guns. You weren't supposed to let another soldier touch your gun unless there was a real and valid reason that they had to.

And then came the planet of the apes.

Technically they were more like Orangutans, at least that's what McKay said; having had a close, personal, and explosive encounter with one he was in a position to know.

"Primates are supposed to be gentle," Sheppard said, pulling the body off McKay.

"Did they get that memo? Oof, Jesus," McKay answered, as he wiggled free. "Haven't you seen Congo?"

"No, but I did see Planet of the Apes," Sheppard drawled, and the name stuck.

McKay scrambled up onto a rock and took a minute to put his head between his knees and breathe while Sheppard pushed onward; the gunfire seemed to have frightened the rest of the animals away from the temple-or-warehouse-or-bunker they'd been investigating when the Orangutan decided to assert his masculinity. Ronon stood on the rock behind him and kept an eye out while Teyla swept from below. After a minute they heard Sheppard on the radio.

"Hey guys, you gotta come see this," he said.

"What now?" McKay asked wearily.

"I just got really inappropriately turned on," Sheppard replied, and reappeared at the door of the building with the biggest, most awesome gun Ronon had ever seen.

" _Vastly_ inappropriate," McKay agreed, while Ronon had a personal moment over the sheer firepower that thing probably packed.

"It's an arms warehouse. Come see," Sheppard invited.

The building was dim, but with their sight-lights on they could see plenty; the gleam of metal on every wall, off glass over cases full of knives and racks full of every weapon Ronon had ever seen and quite a few he hadn't. Sheppard opened his pack, shoved the contents around, and began loading.

"We can send a team back for the rest," he said, passing a handful of click-grenades to McKay, who rolled his eyes but stowed them anyway. Teyla was eyeing the knives covetously.

Then Ronon saw it -- the chest in the corner with the weird writing on the side, the same writing you could see engraved on the blaster if you tilted it and let the light hit it just right. He crouched, clicked the latches, opened it...

"Hoo, boy," he said, gazing down on the contents. "Dibs."

"Dibs?" Sheppard asked, raising an eyebrow. Ronon pulled out three perfect, fully-charged blasters. "Oh, no way, I've wanted one of those forever!"

"Called 'em," Ronon replied, shoving two in his belt. He tossed the third to McKay, who looked terrified before he caught it. "Take that one apart, build us some more."

McKay caught Sheppard's eye. They both grinned.

They came back through the gate looking more like a well-prepared mobile armory than an expedition team. From the looks on the faces of the Marines on Gate duty, Sheppard wasn't the only one feeling a little inappropriate. Sheppard went to prepare a briefing for the recovery team, McKay presented Cadman one of the click-grenades as if it was a proposal of marriage, Cadman accepted it with about the same amount of dignity, and Teyla wandered off, presumably to find a way of testing the sharpness of the knives bristling from her pack-straps.

Ronon pulled one of the blasters from his belt, keyed the double-lock deactivation, and climbed the stairs.

"Don't kill anyone," he said, and offered it grips-first to Chuck.

"Seriously?" Chuck asked. "I mean, really, seriously?"

"Seriously, don't kill anyone," Ronon appended, and walked off with a grin. Chuck was immediately surrounded by a knot of admirers.

He waited until twenty minutes after Chuck was scheduled to go off-shift and then went down to the firing range. Chuck was there, already bleeding in three places from where the hinge was catching his hands, being alternately admired and mocked by what must be every off-duty Marine in the city.

"You guys. Out," Ronon growled, and the room cleared. "You suck with the real thing, Chuck."

"Not for long," Chuck said, a demonic glow in his eyes. "Show me how to shoot it."

***

Two years into Ronon's stay on Atlantis, they invented a new game to test McKay's first gangling, inelegant prototype for the blaster.

"Ready?" Sheppard asked, shifting balance from foot to foot, fingers gripping the handle of the golf club.

"Are you sure this thing's not gonna blow off my hand?" Ronon asked McKay.

"Are you worried? You have a spare," McKay said, which was his way of saying yes.

"PULL!" Sheppard shouted, and the golf ball went arcing through the air towards the water. Ronon brought the prototype up and fired. The golf ball burst into flaming fragments and rained down into the gentle lapping waves.

"You know," Sheppard said, propping the club between deck and hand like a cane, "Whatever anyone says about McKay -- "

"Standing right here!" McKay called.

" -- you can't deny he builds an awesome blaster."

"Can we do it again?" Lorne asked. Zelenka hadn't yet stopped staring at the place where the ex-golf-ball had been destroyed. Teyla was apparently more interested in testing the balance and potential lethality of Sheppard's 9-iron.

Sheppard smiled and tee'd up another ball.

***

The blasters never really took off among the Marines, if only because the models McKay put out, while sleeker than his prototype, were still hard to carry and didn't so much have "stun" and "kill" settings as they did "sting" and "set on fire". Ronon began practicing two-handed blaster-spinning, and to his great satisfaction heard Chuck turning down large bribes for the use of his own.

"I'm going to tell you what a wise man once told me," he said solemnly to the little knot of Marines.

"What's that?" asked one of them.

"You can't touch my gun," Chuck replied, and sauntered off.

As far as nearly everyone was concerned, the head Gate Tech on Atlantis carrying a blaster was a total waste of an awesome weapon. He didn't go offworld, and the only time he ever fired it was on the range. The fact that he got dispensation from Elizabeth to carry it holstered on his hip while he was in the Gateroom only added insult to injury.

Right up until a group of Wraith-worshipping assholes decided to invade Atlantis through the Gate.

Later, when they'd worked out what had happened, they agreed that 1. these morons would never have gotten past the Gateroom, 2. they could, however, have slaughtered everyone inside it, and 3. morons they may have been but ill-prepared they were not. They targeted one of the lower-echelon teams, disarmed them, intimidated their scientist into dialing Atlantis with his IDC ("You are fired," was the only thing McKay said for the rest of the day after finding this out) and came in, guns blazing.

Ronon, who'd been working on an Earther crossword with his feet up on the console (mainly to irritate Chuck) was on the floor in an instant, firing through the legs of the chairs; he didn't even realise another blaster had joined his until he looked up and saw Chuck crouched behind the DHD, one eye squinted like he always did on the range.

It was all over faster than most people could react to what was happening; Colonel Carter hadn't even left her office to find out what the hell was going on. Ronon watched Chuck spin the blaster effortlessly (a nice clean single-half-twist) and holster it before diving under the DHD to make sure none of the crystals were cracked. He was still at work on it when Ronon came back from the infirmary where they'd taken the one Marine who'd been shot by the invaders, the team who'd been hijacked by them, and the invaders themselves.

"Anyone dead?" Chuck asked when he saw him coming.

"Not yet," Ronon said. "If they suddenly die in their sleep overnight I was with you the whole time, okay?"

"Okay," Chuck said agreeably.

"Nice shooting, by the way."

"Yeah, I thought I did all right," Chuck said, closing the bullet-dented panel. "And man, you know what?"

"What?" Ronon asked. Chuck grinned.

"I am gonna get _so much tail_ when word gets out."

***

PSX-992 was another The Planet Of; in this case, The Planet Of The McKays.

Teyla didn't know why her father had stopped trading with the Tanarians, but she assured them that there were no reports anywhere in the galaxy of the Tanarians being actually violent, and Ronon's recon backed it up. They sent Lorne's team in, and they'd been there for maybe an hour when Lorne radio'd back that Colonel Sheppard should come meet the Tanarians and also they wanted to talk to Dr. McKay.

"How do they know who Dr. McKay is?" Sheppard asked.

"They don't, but trust me," Lorne said, "McKay's the one they want to talk to."

The Tanarians, as it turned out, had been blessed at one time with the presence of an extremely irritable Ancient who had left several commandments including "breed for intelligence", "don't ask stupid questions", and "sarcasm shall be the way". The woman that Lorne had first spoken to, who Sheppard privately called McKayla whenever they were out of earshot, greeted them with annoyance and didn't look up from the water pump she was repairing until Ronon moved to stand in front of it. Then she did look up and got a comically startled look on her face.

"Hello, big person," she said, blinking. "Please don't kill me."

"Okay," Ronon replied, but continued to loom until Rodnina (Sheppard's other name for her) agreed to take them to the mayor. Along the way she talked nonstop, extolling and possibly exaggerating the virtues of their settlement, asking tactless questions, and answering all of theirs with sharp remarks and eyerolls.

McKay looked like he was a little bit in love.

Teyla found the Tanarians totally immune to her diplomatic style, dismissing her out of hand the first time she said something that might politely bend the truth just slightly. And this was, of course, the whole point of bringing McKay, except McKay had been hustled off to a wall panel where he was arguing heatedly and indecently with a local scientist about the best method of rewiring the...whatever-it-was behind it.

"Hey, I got an idea," Sheppard said. "Let me try."

"Colonel..." Teyla began, but her wits had pretty much deserted her back at the negotiation table when one of the Tanarians had looked at her, asked if she had some kind of brain damage, and demanded to know how much she knew, if anything, about trans-spatial matter inversion nodes. (The answer of course was nothing, but then Sheppard didn't know anything about it either).

"So," Sheppard said, seating himself and tossing his legs up on the negotiating table. "You have cocoa beans."

The Tanarian gave him a sardonic look.

"We need cocoa beans. We make some really cool stuff with them," Sheppard added, digging into his vest for a snack-sized Snickers bar and tossing it across. The Tanarian peeled it open, tasted it, and squinted.

"In case you hadn't noticed, we are a _bean based industry_ here," he said. "We need the beans ourselves."

"Yeah, you're doing really well with all the...beans," Sheppard replied, looking faintly amused. "And the total lack of bread or vegetables or, you know, meat, that's not going to be problematic."

With that laconic smackdown it was _on_. Ronon watched as Sheppard took skills honed in three years of poking, prodding, annoying, insulting, and cajoling McKay and spun them into a two-hour rapid-fire bickering match that netted them eighteen precious crates of processed almost-cocoa-beans. McKay practically destroyed half the town's egos and made like a million friends (let "friends" := people who seemed to enjoy shouting at him) and decided that if he could introduce the Tanarians to the people on Planet Naked, he'd retire _now_.

"Well," said the negotiator finally, with put-upon dignity, and Ronon sighed with relief. "I suppose that's acceptable."

"Great," Sheppard smiled. "We'll have the livestock delivered in three days."

"Three days! Three! I! It will take three days simply to gather -- " the man replied, looking offended, and Sheppard put up a hand to forestall the tirade.

"Get it done, okay?" he said, and got up from the table.

"Ah," said McKayla from the doorway, shooting nervous looks at Ronon. "There's one other thing."

Sheppard looked extremely unamused.

"You may have noticed a slight tendency in our people to, uh, debate," she said.

"I wasn't gonna say anything," Ronon assured her, deadpan.

"Well, we don't get much trade, I don't know why, everyone in this galaxy are idiots or really delicate or something," she said. "But we put a lot of value on, you know... _ideas_. And intelligence. And healthy intellectual intercourse."

"Did I miss anything?" McKay asked, approaching from the street, Teyla tagging after him. "Dinner?"

"She wants intercourse," Ronon called. Everyone in the room blushed.

"We'd like to request a public debate. It's a tradition, when we meet someone we feel really...understands Tanarian tradition like Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay do," she continued doggedly. "It's not very complicated. We would assemble our people in the square and appoint an opponent for Doctor McKay and they would, uh. Go at it. Not like that! Intellectually," she said to McKay, who was gaping at her. "We'd consider it a promise of good faith."

"I think it's idiotic," the negotiator said.

"Did I ask you?" McKayla demanded.

"Just because you haven't the native wit to ask me -- "

"Native wit's all you have to offer! You stick to bean sales."

"OKAY," Sheppard said, stepping between them. "Rodney?"

"Uh?" McKay was still looking startled.

"You want to indulge in a little intellectual stimulation?"

"There's a feast afterward," McKayla added.

McKay sniffed. "If they feel they have someone equipped to debate on my level."

"I like that!" McKayla whirled on him. "We're not backwards peasants, you know!"

"Hey, like half your stuff wasn't working when I got here -- "

"Because you have the gene, lightswitch."

The mayor clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Let us move this stimulating conversation into the public square, shall we?"

McKay had spent a long time working for the military and had probably been born an asshole and, given the opportunity to really let loose, he had an impressive vocabulary. Ronon kept expecting someone to burst into tears or shoot him or something, but as he sat in the square and watched McKay and McKayla heap insults on each other he had to admit he could understand why the only tears were in the audience, and they were tears of admiration.

Sheppard taped the whole thing without telling anyone and made a highlights reel that circulated like wildfire in Atlantis. Ronon felt obscurely proud of McKay and the fact that people in two galaxies were now aware of the extemporaneous debating skills of the Canadian tribe.

Ronon politely did not tell anyone about the look he saw on Sheppard's face when McKay was gaining the upper hand in the debate, because some things were private and none of his business.


	3. Chapter 3

_At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane_   
_Our brave fathers side by side_   
_For freedom's home and loved ones dear,_   
_Firmly stood and nobly died._

"Don't think about it," Ronon advised, as Chuck tried a simple spin-toss with the blaster and once again bruised an already tender area across his knuckles. "You gotta just do it till your muscles know."

"Yeah," Chuck sighed. "My muscles are kind of dumb right now."

"Think about other stuff. Start a spin," Ronon said, and Chuck began flipping the blaster around one hand, spinning, clicking it across the hinges, holstering it only to flick it back out again. Ronon joined in after a few seconds, then stopped and smacked the back of Chuck's head when he frowned in concentration.

"Maybe I've, you know, achieved my peak," Chuck said. "In the realm of juggling dangerous weaponry. I mean I'm pretty good as it is."

"You gotta stop thinking," Ronon repeated. "C'mon, gimme some poetry."

"I'm fresh out of memorised stuff, you've heard it all," Chuck said, but he holstered the blaster and pulled his tablet off his belt, hanging it on a headphone rack on the firing-range wall. He scrolled through a list of files and picked one seemingly at random. Ronon moved to stand next to him so they could read together.

_I met a traveler from an antique land_  
 _Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone_  
 _Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,_

Chuck started spinning again and then doing simple hand-to-hand tosses.

_Half-sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown_  
 _And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command_  
 _Tell that its sculptor well those passions read_  
 _Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things_  
 _The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed._

Ronon cut his eyes sideways for a moment as Chuck executed a perfect spin-toss and then another back into the original hand.

_And on the pedestal these words appear:_  
 _MY NAME IS OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS:_  
 _LOOK ON MY WORK, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR!_  
 _Nothing besides remains._

Chuck tossed the blaster up, let it go for three complete rotations, and caught it out of the air.

_Round the decay_  
 _Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,_  
 _The lone and level sands stretch far away._

Every time Chuck spun, from then on, Ronon could see just the barest hint of movement at his lips as he recited.

Well, whatever kept you going, he supposed.

***

Their last mission before Teyla was taken by Michael involved a snow-covered planet with no inhabitants at all but the possibility of a naquada mine. They found the mine easily enough, because Ronon fell straight through the ice and into it, and McKay landed on top of him, and then so did a whole bunch of snow.

"Ronon? McKay?" Sheppard's voice through the radio.

"Okay, seriously," McKay answered, "I have totally filled my quota of death-by-mineshaft moments already. Did you have to pull me in with you, "Potholes" Dex?"

"Relax, Buckaroo Banzai," Sheppard replied over the radio. "Where are you guys?"

"Under some snow," Ronon answered. "Twenty feet, maybe twenty-five."

"You got air? Got your equipment?"

Ronon looked around. The shaft was small and narrow and blocked by a solid sheet of ice, creating a small chamber; they probably had eight or nine hours worth of air, and they both had their packs.

"We're good," Ronon said.

"We are _so far from good_ \-- "

"Can it, McKay," Sheppard said. "We're going back to the Gate, we'll get some engineers out here with shovels. Sit tight and cuddle for warmth."

"Sheppard, don't you dare leave us SHEPPARD DON'T YOU DARE -- " McKay cut off suddenly as the snow squealed, shifting and showering them with ice. " _Son of a bitch!_ "

"Sheppard'll get us out," Ronon said, edging up against McKay's shoulder and pulling the pack off. "You got thermal blankets?"

They managed to arrange themselves against a wall of rock rather than snow, wrapped in thermal foil blankets, shoulder to shoulder. McKay complained the whole time in an undertone designed to demonstrate both his fear of further cave-ins and possibly his future as a crazy muttering mad scientist until Ronon got annoyed.

"Don't you stop to breathe?" he asked.

"I am breathing as little as possible in order to conserve air," McKay retorted.

"Yeah, except you're talking, which is _wasting_ air."

"Excuse me for having coping mechanisms. I'm trying not to get frostbite or fall asleep here. Since cards are pretty much out and I left my Playstation back on Earth, I'm a little pressed for entertainment."

"I could distract you," Ronon said.

"I really don't think Prime-Not!Prime is your game."

"I know other stuff. You know Robert Service?"

McKay twisted around and looked at him. "I'm sorry, did you just say _Robert Service?_ "

"I can't know Robert Service?" Ronon asked, honestly intrigued. Maybe it was a secret Canadian thing.

"Where the hell did you learn about -- "

"Chuck taught me."

McKay barked out a sharp laugh. "Yeah, it'd be him."

"I have good recall. I could tell you Sam McGee. Sounds like McKay." Ronon grinned ferally. " _The night on the marge of lake LeBarge I cremated Mer McKay_."

"Okay now you're officially freaking me out and also you do not ever get to call me Mer."

"Well, if you don't know it..."

"I! Don't know! Hey, he's _my_ cultural heritage, you syncretic freak of nature. I know Sam McGee. I had to memorise it for -- "

"Grade ten English?"

McKay looked annoyed. "Grade six. Waste of colossal time and now it's stuck in my head, where there could be Nobel-prize-winning mathematics."

"Bet you don't." Ronon challenged, pleased with himself. McKay was well and thoroughly distracted and also looked warmer.

"I know Robert Service, Ronon the Barbarian."

"Prove it."

McKay rolled his eyes. "There are strange things done 'neath the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen strange sights, but the strangest they ever did see was the night on the marge of the Lake LeBarge I cremated Sam McGee."

"Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows..." Ronon joined in. It felt good; it felt like a chant, like something the regiment would do. Not this story, maybe, but the rhythm was right.

"...a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load," McKay's teeth chattered a little, but chattering was all right; when they stopped shivering, that'd be when the trouble started.

"In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing," they said in unison.

They recited the whole poem, right up through Sam McGee being stuffed into a makeshift crematorium. McKay only tripped up once, and that was on the funny verse, where he couldn't remember _Plumtree, down in Tennessee_ before _It's the first time I've been warm!_

Ronon whooped enthusiastically when they finished. McKay laughed a little, even, and elbowed him in the ribs.

"I don't know if it's all the time you spend hanging out with Chuck or my own genius," he said solemnly, "but you have the soul of a Canadian, Ronon."

And that was when they heard Sheppard shout "LOOK OUT BELOW" and in a rain of snow and ice the roof caved in.

Good times, man.

And then came Michael, and Teyla's abduction, and Ronon didn't think he really thought at all until she was safe again, with Torren sleeping fitfully in her arms. 

***

Ronon knew that McKay and Sheppard weren't intending to be so obvious. Sheppard was notoriously unaware about this kind of thing, though Ronon thought possibly much of that came from, you know, not being interested in women. McKay wasn't unaware, he just wasn't very good with people, so he didn't bother much with the opinions of people who weren't in his immediate orbit (Ronon, Teyla, Sheppard, Keller, Carter, Zelenka).

"I'm running a book," Chuck said, sitting down across from Ronon, tilting his head at the wide glass windows at the other end of the mess. McKay and Sheppard were sitting at one of the small tables there, having some kind of heated argument which was probably their version of foreplay, McKay gesturing with his bandaged hand. "I need your help calculating odds."

"What on?" Ronon asked.

"Sheppard and McKay. Are they doing it?"

Ronon finished chewing before he answered. "Who wants to know?"

"Everybody."

"They're my team," Ronon said significantly. It didn't have to be spoken aloud: _Don't fuck with my team_.

"Like anyone cares about it," Chuck rolled his eyes. "Half the Marines are betting they are, and if they were the assholes they are generally painted to be, they'd already have taken Sheppard out for a beating. This is Pegasus. Nobody gives a fuck. Does that mean you know?"

Ronon shrugged. "It's not like they'd go at it in front of me."

"But?"

"They probably wanna be, if they aren't."

Chuck gave the pair a measuring look. "Neat love story."

Ronon nodded. He'd put some thought into this. "Not the one you think, though."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You think it's Sheppard and McKay, but it's not," Ronon continued. "I've been watching movies."

"Oh god. What did they inflict on you?"

"No, I get it," Ronon protested. "It's a classic. In my home too."

This stopped Chuck cold as he was about to launch into a diatribe about popular film (Chuck was a hardcore noir fan, whatever noir was).

"Boy meets boy?" he asked.

"No," Ronon answered disdainfully. "It's not about them."

"What's it about?"

"Atlantis," Ronon said, gesturing with his fork. "It's classic. Pretty girl has to choose between the -- uh. The jock and the..."

"Oh my god," Chuck covered his mouth to keep from laughing. "The jock and the geek!"

"Yeah. And everybody's always supposed to root for the underdog."

Chuck scowled. "Duckie was _robbed_ ," he said darkly, which was some reference Ronon was going to have to call him on at some later date.

"Atlantis is the girl and they're chasing her," Ronon said. "McKay's winning, by the way."

"How do you figure?"

"He's the one people call when they want her fixed."

"But shouldn't they hate each others' guts, then, McKay and Sheppard?"

"Fine line," Ronon said, grinning.

"Hmm." Chuck said, and sipped his water. "They're totally doing it, then?"

"Yeah, probably." Ronon paused. "McKay says dudes can get married in Canada."

"Yeah, that's true." Chuck got that look he got, whenever he felt he was being one-sided about all this cultural exchange and wanted to ask Ronon about Sateda but thought it might annoy him. It was kind of amusing, in an awesome sort of way.

"On Sateda marriage was about kids," he said. "So we didn't have a lot of rules about it. If you got married you were gonna have kids. If you were gonna adopt a kid, you had to find someone to marry."

Chuck frowned. "So like...you didn't have to be in love."

Ronon shrugged. "I'm just saying, nobody cared. You could marry your best friend as long as they were gonna help you raise the kids. Who you hung out with was your business."

"Well, that seems...enlightened."

"Earthers are weird about sex."

"You're telling me. I'm the one taking bets on whether my boss is sleeping with Colonel Sheppard."

***

Ronon's literary tastes were pretty catholic, and after a while he broke away from Chuck's recommendations and began reading on his own. One particular Daedalus delivery for him carried three Stephen King novels, a translated Plato's Republic, and a book called The Group Of Seven which was about Canadians. Ronon thought it was probably their version of The Dirty Dozen.

Turned out, not so much.

There wasn't even that much to read, but that didn't matter, because Ronon sat in the mess with the cellophane wrapper still crumpled next to him and ate without looking at his food as he pored over the full-colour reproduced paintings that the Group of Seven had done. The book said they were a part of the Canadian national identity, but this wasn't the Canada he'd seen. It was all wilderness and mountains and houses that looked like Sateda's, plank-board, weathered-paint, surrounded by scrabbly wind-blown trees. There were huge rock formations and nude portraits. They were weird and vibrant, and Lawren Harris painted like he'd known Atlantis, all smooth crisp angles and rounded corners.

"Whatcha looking at?" Sheppard asked, sliding into the seat across from him. "Looks like chocolate cake."

"It's a mountain," Ronon informed him.

"Of chocolate cake?"

Ronon sniffed. "It's Canadian."

" _Canadian_ chocolate cake."

"Dude, seriously, no wonder McKay's so high strung," Ronon remarked, and Sheppard shut his mouth and stared at him.

"No wonder I'm what?" McKay asked, setting his tray down next to Sheppard. "Is that Group of Seven?"

"Yeah," Ronon said, turning the book around and offering it. McKay waved it away with his spoon.

"Not interested. Lawren Harris always makes me think of chocolate cake."

Sheppard looked supremely vindicated. Ronon just rolled his eyes. McKay offered him his juice bottle and Ronon obligingly inched his baked potato off his plate and onto McKay's tray.

"TEYLA!" Sheppard called, and Ronon looked over his shoulder. Teyla was standing at the serving table, helping herself to a sandwich and some potato chips, Torren slung in a knotted shawl around her shoulders. She joined them, carefully shifting the baby out of the way of the table and, in so doing, directly into McKay's arms.

"Thanks," McKay said sourly, but he clutched the kid as if too much freedom of movement might kill it.

"Your turn anyway," Sheppard said.

"I thought this was your job after you lost the Rock Paper Scissors for doting godfather," McKay retorted.

" _Won_ , McKay. I _won_. You're the only one who's allergic to kids."

"I just don't see why we have to interact with beings whose brains and chemical bodily functions haven't fully developed," McKay replied, trying in vain to get a hand on his spoon and still maintain his death-grip on Torren. "If you're so happy about it, you take him."

"I have a sandwich in my hands," Sheppard said, picking up his sandwich. McKay gave him a withering look.

"Plato says parents shouldn't raise their own kids," Ronon heard himself say. "He says the state should do it so they all think the same way."

Everyone at the table looked at him.

"Plato's kind of full of crap," he added.

"Two vast but accurate oversimplifications," McKay observed. "Besides, it doesn't account for genius. Exceptional people require exceptional education."

"Are you saying my child is exceptional, Rodney?" Teyla asked, smiling.

"First native-born Atlantean citizen, stick-fighting alien princess for a mother, suicidal thrill-junkie mathlete for a godfather, Uncle Ronon keeps knives in his hair and recites poetry, and Uncle Rodney's a future Nobel-Prize winner who, if Torren is very good and doesn't puke on him too much, will teach him how to build bombs when he's older. If he isn't exceptional it won't be our fault," McKay said.

"Yeah, he is Atlantean, isn't he?" Sheppard said thoughtfully.

"He is Athosian first," Teyla reminded them.

It took Ronon a minute to understand that she meant he was the child of Athosians, nothing more. He listened as McKay bickered with Teyla about Torren's future upbringing, but his head was elsewhere -- caught up in the problem he kept having, which was that nobody actually belonged to Atlantis as a tribe, not even him, and that still left him tribeless after the destruction of Sateda.

Atlantis wasn't actually a country, no matter how much it united the people living there (and besides, it also antagonised them and routinely tried to kill them all). It didn't have a flag or a standing independent army. It didn't even have a national food like Poutine or Big Macs, though he supposed they could count the giant, carnivorous, and delicious bat-things that Sheppard uncovered in the lower levels of the city. No national anthem, no tribal standards or tattoos. Not A Real Country.

Still, Ronon _wanted_ it to be, because then he could be a citizen there. Sateda was fading from his memory and perhaps that was just as well. He'd listened to anthropologists talking about preserving heritage and native arts and all the rest of it, but he thought Sateda should be laid in peace. She deserved that much, his homeworld.

He was pretty sure he'd never be evicted from Atlantis again, not without dying first. But, if he was, he made the decision that he wasn't going to go back to the Athosians and Teyla. Teyla was fine, but the Athosians made him jumpy, weren't like him, weren't his people. Except Teyla, and maybe Torren.

Maybe Chuck would let him crash in Canada for a while.

" -- think, Ronon?"

Ronon looked up guiltily from his soup. "Huh?"

"Six too young to teach someone how to fly a Puddlejumper?" Sheppard repeated.

"No six-year-old is going anywhere near a Jumper," McKay insisted.

"Hey, my dad let me drive his Mustang when I was six." Sheppard made a steering motion. "You know, sitting on his lap."

"And was your dad's Mustang capable of direct neural interface and multiple G's of acceleration? Do you want the kid brain-damaged for life?"

"Ancient kids must have used their technology all the time," Sheppard pointed out.

"Yeah, and let's look at some of the Ancients' brilliant ideas, like computer-assisted Ascension, time-warp booby traps, and unsecured biohazard areas filled with horrible virii," McKay replied. "Forgive me for not trusting them with Torren's delicate growing neurons."

Ronon wasn't too worried about Torren Emmagen. He had Teyla to teach him about being an Athosian and fighting and diplomacy, and Ronon could help with the fighting and maybe get him his first tattoo, and Sheppard and McKay could teach him math and...other stuff. The point was, Torren had a family _and_ a country, and Ronon had the team for family but he felt a little stupid lacking something that a two-month-old baby had.


	4. Chapter 4

_And may those ties of love be ours_  
 _Which discord cannot sever_  
 _And flourish green for freedom's home_  
 _The Maple Leaf Forever_

"I want to be a Canadian," Ronon said in the Gateroom one day, and Chuck looked at him aghast over the edge of the DHD.

"You want to what?" he demanded.

"Be a Canadian," Ronon said. "What?"

"Oh my god," Chuck said faintly. "I'm a _missionary_."

Ronon had read about Missionaries when he read James Michner; Hawaii sounded nice and he wanted to see it sometime, though not as much as he wanted to see Prince Edward Isle after reading _Anne Of Green Gables_ (which nobody told him was a _girly_ book, assholes, until he offered to lend it to Sheppard and McKay fell off his lab stool laughing). The missionaries in _Hawaii_ didn't seem like very nice people, but if that was Chuck's religion he'd roll with it.

"You are?" he asked, just to be sure.

"I am, oh my god, I am," Chuck still looked upset. "I taught you English and never even asked to learn Satedan and I and evangelised Canada to you and now you want to give up your culture and become a Canadian. I'm a missionary for Canada. I'm a social imperialist. I've destroyed your heritage."

"Uh," Ronon said, getting it, and then, "No. I think the Wraith did that."

Chuck looked even more upset at this, so Ronon decided to work on what Teyla called his Communication Skills, or lack thereof.

"Sateda's dead," he said. "You gotta give stuff up when you live with the Wraith. I'm tired of missing it. I want to be part of a tribe again."

Chuck's unhappy look faded into a more puzzled frown. "This tribe?" he asked, tapping the flag on his shoulder.

"Canada's not a tribe," McKay announced, dropping into the chair next to him, He plugged one of the exposed crystals from the control table into his tablet and started doing something fiddly with the touchscreen. "What are we talking about?"

"Ronon wants to be a Canadian," Chuck said.

McKay looked up, dumbfounded. "Why?"

"I like Canada," Ronon said. "I've been there. You guys are pretty cool."

McKay seemed pleased at being esteemed "pretty cool", but the doubtful expression hadn't quite left his face. "You've been to Vancouver, and you spent the whole time intimidating people into not killing me. Not that I'm not grateful, but Canada's kind of bigger than Vancouver."

"I like poutine," Ronon said. "And I get the offside rule in hockey."

McKay shot Chuck a look, and he held his hands up in a gesture of innocence. "I didn't teach him. I didn't even know he liked hockey."

"Tim Horton's," Ronon said, and both of the other men got distant, nostalgic looks for a minute. Ronon once ate five Tim Horton's sandwiches in a sitting, while Sheppard, McKay, Jeannie, and her husband whats-his-name looked on in awe and Madison nibbled, huge-eyed, on a cruller. "I'm good. I pick Canada. What do I have to do?"

Chuck rubbed the back of his head. "I dunno, I think the SGC could probably just fake you up some Canadian citizenship papers."

"There's no like...rite of passage?" Ronon asked.

"There's a citizenship exam," McKay said doubtfully. "I think they ask you what colours are on the flag."

"Seriously? You guys have kind of low standards."

"Can you imagine a Canadian rite of initiation?" Chuck asked, grinning suddenly. "Very politely blindfolded, driven out to some field outside Calgary -- "

McKay snorted. "Tapped three times with a hockey stick -- "

" -- asked to swear on each province by name -- "

" -- in Quebecois -- "

" -- and then given a Loonie to hang around your neck -- "

" -- while you sing the national anthem," McKay finished.

"I know the national anthem," Ronon muttered.

"Chuck." McKay snapped his fingers and made a circling gesture. "I need one more hand. It's attached to your arm."

Chuck gave Ronon a long-suffering look and crossed to the control table, crawling underneath it to open the lower access hatch.

"You know," he said conversationally, "Given that they were telekinetic geniuses and all, you'd think they'd make this crap easier to get to."

"Mm, they probably didn't need to open the access panels at all."

"Then why install 'em?" Ronon asked.

"Personal theory? The Ancients had a super secret slave race they made do all the gross and boring jobs," Chuck replied.

"Yeah, they're called _Marines_ ," McKay said, and they were still snickering when Colonel Carter approached.

"Gentlemen," she announced, with one of those weird smiles she got, like she'd like to be in on the joke but knew better than to ask. "Rodney, Ronon, can I see you guys in the conference room for a minute?"

"Working," McKay replied in a sing-song.

"Is it life and death?"

"That depends. Whose life?" McKay asked. "If I drop this crystal it'll start a chain reaction that will probably set Chuck on fire."

"Do not want!" Chuck called from under the console.

"When you're done not setting Chuck on fire, then," she said. "Ronon?"

Ronon tipped his chair forward and followed her into the conference room, which was already half-full; Sheppard and Lorne were doing the sulky-leaning-thing they did, Zelenka was working away as happily there as he would have been in the lab, sitting next to a quiet Teyla and an anxiously fidgeting Keller.

"I could go maim McKay into obedience," Sheppard offered, when he saw Ronon was alone. "Sometimes that's the only way," he added protestingly, when Teyla and Zelenka glared at him.

"Apparently whatever he's doing involves deliberately not setting someone on fire," Colonel Carter said. "I think we're fine starting without him."

She paused and drew a deep breath, which pretty much always meant bad news.

"A coded communique came through to me early this morning, from Dr. Jackson at Stargate Command," she began.

"We weren't scheduled for a databurst," Sheppard said.

"I know. He felt it couldn't wait. The IOA decided two days ago to send representatives from Earth through the space bridge, to assess our progress in Pegasus."

"Oh, great," Keller said, then flushed bright red. From the looks around the room, however, she was only saying what everyone was thinking.

"Yeah. They're scheduled to arrive next week. We were scheduled to be informed about two hours before they showed up. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're being _screwed with_."

"Gee, that's unexpected," Sheppard drawled. "You want us to screw back?"

"With enthusiasm. I'd like to slate some demonstrations for them, to keep them busy and out from underfoot. Marine drills, that kind of thing," she said. "Teyla, if you feel your people are up to it, I thought the IOA representatives might enjoy a show of native Pegasus Galaxy culture."

"Something...long," Teyla said. "Time-consuming."

"Something like that."

"I know of several worlds that would be happy to provide entertainment in the form of ritual dances," Teyla continued. "And prayers of welcome and goodwill."

"Oh, please, do. Dr. Keller -- "

"I could give a really _interesting_ lecture on Ancient medical technology," Keller beamed.

"I bet you could. Sheppard, do you still have the tape of McKay doing that debate -- "

"Like eight copies," Sheppard's grin outshone even Keller's.

"A tour of the labs," Zelenka suggested.

"Uh -- that'd be great but maybe we can clean up the -- "

" -- explosive machinery, yes, absolutely. I am certain Rodney also will have many ideas."

"Nobody talks like Rodney," Sheppard muttered.

"Please, feel free to submit applications for any activities you think might be of any interest at all to the members of the IOA," Carter said, looking proud. "And make sure everything is spotless and everyone has bright, shining faces."

"Let's go beat the Marines," Sheppard said to Lorne. "What do you think, maybe two or three hours of drills for our guests?"

"We could fly them over the mainland, show off the really big snakes," Lorne agreed as they left.

"All right, let's force-feed them Atlantis," Carter said. "Get to it. Oh, Ronon."

"Yeah?" Ronon asked, waiting while the others streamed out.

"I'd like you to be their personal tour guide. You know, make sure they know they can come to you with any questions or problems they're having. And of course, keep the blasters on -- we want to make sure they feel safe."

Ronon gave her his best _terrifying the newbies_ grin.

"I can do that," he said. "And I got one or two ideas of my own."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Ronon nodded. "I'm gonna need some golf balls, though."

***

There were two separate schedules for the IOA representatives' visit to Atlantis. The first was printed in multiple copies on soft white paper acquired from PRN-225 and handed out to the esteemed representatives when they arrived. The second was circulated and then kept in Samantha Carter's pocket, and was much more interesting:

DAY 1  
 **Afternoon** : Civilian and Section Heads Assembly, Gateroom  
Greetings and Goodwill Ceremony (Two hours of chanting and some ceremonial facepaint. Good times.)

 **Evening** : Formal Reception, Mess Hall. Buffet Dinner. (Uniforms pressed and ironed, people)

DAY 2  
Athosian Sunrise Ceremony, Central Tower (Teyla says she can fake something awesome for this, plus tea. Ronon, be sure all the representatives are awake by 0530?)

Breakfast with Senior Medical Staff, Mess Hall (informal discussion of rotting diseases a plus)

 **Morning** : Lab Tour (McKay, feel free to pretend they're as interested in what you do as you are)

Picnic Lunch, Pier 14

 **Afternoon** : Senior Staff Meeting with IOA Representatives; budgetary concerns; Q&A session  
Pegasus Galaxy Field Trip: The Historic Ruins of MT5-900, local name Ihnos; Ronon Dex and Jennifer Keller, Tour Guides

Informal Dinner, Mess Hall

 **Evening** : Movie Night! in the Film Auditorium  
Opening Film: _Scientific Relations In The Pegasus Galaxy_ (McKay crushes the opposition!)  
Feature: _Casablanca_ (NOBODY GETS TO THROW POPCORN. I MEAN IT.)  
Late Showing For Night Owls: _MST3K Presents Manos, The Hands Of Fate_

DAY 3  
Breakfast with Senior Military Staff, Mess Hall (Sheppard, can you ACTUALLY hold forth on War and Peace?)

 **Morning** : Civilian "City Hall" Meeting, Mess Hall (No issue too small for discussion!)  
Lunch will be served at the close of the City Hall Meeting (Preferably around, say, 1400?)

 **Afternoon** : Free time to explore the city, if schedule allows  
1500: Citywide Assembly, East Pier  
Marine Drills under the command of Major Evan Lorne (You can make this impressive, Lorne, you don't have to bore them)  
Athosian Ceremonial Dancing (With dangerous sticks!)  
Oration on International Goodwill by Radek Zelenka (Trust me, this is going to be hilarious. Who knew Zelenka was so ironic?)  
Spinning and Sharpshooting Demonstration: Canadian Irregular Blaster Corps (Chuck, are you sure you're okay with this?)

Picnic Dinner, East Pier.

 **Evening** : Starlight dance and musical concert, East Pier  
Fireworks provided by the Atlantean Pyrotechnics Squad under the command of Lt. Laura Cadman

DAY 4  
Breakfast with Science Staff, Anthropology and Botany Departments (Smelly plants a plus!)

 **Morning** : What Can Atlantean Medical Technology Do For You? (Invasive demonstration of medical scanning and biopsy devices by Dr. Keller)

Lunch and exit briefing with Colonel Carter, Mess Hall

 **Afternoon** : Farewell Ceremony (More face-painting!)  
IOA Representatives depart, 1400 hours.

***

Ronon found the IOA representatives extremely soothing, because they took one look at him and then a second look at the blasters strapped to each leg and didn't ask him for a single thing the entire visit. Only one of them said anything to him at all, other than the necessary pleasantries; she seemed nice, actually, and he felt a little sorry for her. Dr. Khakov was new to the IOA, hadn't been on the board when he'd gone to Earth for his interviews, and he sensed that maybe she represented a change in the political winds.

"I'm told you're from Sateda," she said to him, keeping up relatively easily while the others huffed and puffed around the ruins of Ihnos. "I understand your homeworld was culled by the Wraith."

"S'right," he said.

"I'm sorry. I hope you know that Earth's presence here in Atlantis means we're doing everything possible to battle this new menace."

"Hardly new," he grunted.

"Well, not to you, I suppose."

"Anyway," he said awkwardly, "I'm immigrating."

She looked at him, confused. "Immigrating? To where? Atlantis?"

"Atlantis isn't a country."

"No, not really, but -- "

"Canada," he said, and she actually stopped walking. He kept going; after a few seconds he heard her running to catch up with him.

"You're immigrating to Canada?"

"Figuratively."

"How do you figuratively immigrate?"

"Gonna get my citizenship. And a new tattoo," he added, pointing to the one on his throat.

"Ah, I...see. Wasn't there something about a Canadian military corps -- they're doing some kind of demonstration for us tomorrow night."

"The Irregulars," Ronon supplied.

"Do you know any of them?"

"One or two," he answered, amused.

The next evening, as he and Chuck were checking their equipment during Zelenka's speech (which was every ounce as funny to the Atlanteans as promised, though the IOA didn't seem to be in on the joke), he caught Dr. Khakov's eye and grinned at her.

"You about ready?" Chuck asked, adjusting the strap that held the scrounged cricket bat on his back.

"Think so. You still okay with this?" Ronon replied, passing him a handful of golf balls to shove into his pockets.

"Sure, it's not me doing most of the shooting. Hey..." Chuck squinted at him. "Is that a new shirt?"

"So?"

"Trying to impress Dr. Khakov? I heard her say she thinks you're hot."

Ronon glanced at him. "You're fucking with me, aren't you?"

Chuck grinned. "Just a little. But she doesn't have to say it, she checked out your ass."

"Whatever," Ronon said, crossing his arms.

"Game face time?" Chuck asked.

"Game face time."

Zelenka finished to wild applause and foot-stamping from the assembled population of Atlantis, bowed, and vacated the stage as a pair of burly Marines lifted his makeshift lectern and carried it off behind him. Ronon double-checked that his holster straps were secure and then led the way up to the platform. Next to him he heard Chuck take a deep, nervous breath.

"The Canadian Irregular Blaster Corps presents: a demonstration of arms proficiency for the edification of the Atlantean mission and the entertainment of the IOA," Chuck called out. From somewhere in the back, Lorne blew a shrill wolf-whistle. Chuck's voice dropped to near-inaudible. "One, two, three, four!"

Ronon's right hand flipped his blaster out of his holster almost of its own accord, at the same time as Chuck's did; they'd spent every spare minute rehearsing since the news came in, and they were as close to synchronised as they were ever going to get. They started easy with flips and spins and then he pulled his left blaster as well when Chuck began tossing; he could see the IOA representatives leaning forward, and some of the Marines whispering to each other. Most of them were staring at Chuck, who wasn't as ostentatious about his skills as Ronon was.

Ronon tossed his left blaster behind his back and over his head, which was Chuck's signal to holster his and pull the cricket bat out of the strap on his back.

"Cricket? Come on!" someone hollered.

"Target one!" Chuck shouted back, and batted a golf ball from his pocket over the heads of the audience. Ronon kept spinning with his left hand, lifted his right, fired, and blew it to little flaming pieces when it was just past the danger zone. A couple of Marines in the back still ducked.

"HEY!" Sheppard's voice. They were his golf balls, technically, but Ronon saw McKay clap his hand over Sheppard's mouth out of the corner of his eye.

"Target two! Target three!" Chuck batted two more in quick succession and Ronon held both blasters up to fire; dead hits each time. He holstered the left blaster, got one more hit off with the right, and caught the cricket bat without looking, smacking the golf ball high and fast when it entered his line of sight, listening for the rasp of leather that indicated Chuck had re-drawn his own.

He'd been iffy about letting Chuck do any firing because he only hit the ball about half the time, but considering everything so far, he didn't think anyone would care if Chuck missed by a mile --

And he didn't. The golf ball exploded, raining ash down into the water, and they reholstered their blasters in perfect sync.

_The crowd went wild._

He bowed, and Chuck bowed, and then they bowed to each other and trooped off the stage and totally, no matter what anyone said, did not do a full-on body slam once they were mostly out of view.

That evening most of the representatives were too tired to do more than sit and pick at their plates and listen to the music -- exactly as Carter intended -- but once the dancing began Dr. Khakov actually asked him to dance. He taught her a Satedan waltz while listening to Sheppard curse as he continually stepped on Colonel Carter's toes and McKay brag to Cadman about Canadian superiority with firearms.

***

Three weeks after the IOA visited Atlantis and returned too exhausted to even write reports, the Daedalus arrived with its regular shipments, plus a package for Ronon that he hadn't been expecting.

"It's from Dr. Khakov," Sheppard said, wagging his eyebrows in an incredibly disturbing way. "Love letter?"

Ronon fell back on that old standby, "Whatever", and tore the large, thin envelope open at one end. McKay leaned over his shoulder shamelessly.

"Oh my _god_ ," he said gleefully, when Ronon pulled the sheaf of papers out.

"What is it?" Sheppard asked, looking irritated.

"CHUCK!" McKay shouted. Chuck, eating with a couple of other gate techs, looked up.

"WHAT?" he called back.

"RONON'S A CANADIAN!"

"YEAH, I KNOW!"

Sheppard grabbed the paper from Ronon's weirdly numb fingers as Chuck came over to see what the big deal was.

"...certify and declare that Ronon Dex whose particulars are endorsed hereon, is a Canadian citizen and that he is entitled to all rights, powers, and privileges and subject to all obligations, duties, and liabilities to which a natural-born Canadian citizen is entitled or subject," Sheppard read. He flicked the certificate to the bottom of the pile. "Voter card, absentee ballot -- you vote in...Goo..."

"Guelph," McKay supplied. "Nice little town. It's in Ontario."

"I know where Guelph is," Ronon managed.

"Medical paperwork, weapons permit -- hey, that'll be handy -- passport and..." he shook the passport and a small gold coin tumbled out.

"A loonie," Chuck said, taking it from Sheppard and passing it to Ronon.

"So much for a rite of initiation," Sheppard observed.

"We could still blindfold him and beat him with hockey sticks if he really wants one," McKay offered, ducking away with a cry of "Delicate brain!" as Ronon cuffed him in the head.

He never did find out who left a red command-colour jacket with a Canadian flag hastily sewn onto the arm outside his door the following morning, but he suspected one of the Canadian nurses, who was dating the Atlantis outpost quartermaster.

McKay shared his MRE brownies with Ronon for three whole weeks ("In the spirit of Canadian solidarity") before the novelty wore off and Sheppard stopped looking annoyed that Ronon hadn't picked the United States instead. Sheppard never did stop insisting Ronon did it purely for the gravy fries, though.

_In Toronto, on a wall in a reputable if slightly run-down tattoo parlour, there's a photograph of a grinning, dreadlocked guy who said he was on shore leave and wanted a tattoo. He spent the whole time he was in the chair arguing with the tattoo artist about the upcoming parliamentary elections, and what the chances were of the Blue Jays taking the American League pennant that year._

_The vivid red maple leaf just above his collarbone was small, compared to some of the guy's tatts, but whatever. It seemed really important to him._


	5. STORY NOTES

_God save our Queen and heaven bless,_  
 _The Maple Leaf Forever._  
\-- Alexander Muir

I am not a Canadian.

Actually, I sort of am, depending on how you look at it. My mum was born and raised in Canada, the daughter of a French-Canadian artist and a British aerospace engineer. You'd think that would make us way more interesting than we are, really. At any rate, they immigrated to the United States and she became a naturalised citizen as a teenager. Alexander Muir's "The Maple Leaf Forever", while perhaps not quite PC anymore, hung on the wall of my childhood home. While I wouldn't say I've traveled extensively in Canada, I have spent quite a bit of time bunking out with friends there, mainly in Toronto and the surrounding area. Many of my ancestors come from Guelph or nearby Elora.

The story didn't start out to be about Canada or immigration; I just wanted to look at Ronon as the survivor of a pretty well-advanced society in a lot of ways, and I wondered what he would make of these people who are basically not that much further ahead of him technologically and way behind him in other ways, fumbling around with the Stargate and clearly not aware of most of the Pegasus Galaxy standards when it comes to gate travel. I also have a soft spot for minor recurring characters, so I thought I'd work Chuck in there as his partner in crime. THEN MY HEAD EXPLODED.

It is canon that while the Stargate translates speech it doesn't translate text -- in at least one episode, Trio, McKay mentions that he's the only one present who can read Genii. This is weird, but whatever. I thought it would be interesting to explore Ronon learning to read English, especially since he'd be expected to write his mission reports in a language at least one other person could read. Also his blaster is way cool, and if I were Chuck I would totally swap literacy lessons for blaster-twirling.

In the end, many of the scenes in this fic are also just there so that I can poke sly fun at John Sheppard, because that never gets old.

Also, though I love the Group of Seven and Lawren Harris in particular, his paintings really do look like chocolate cake sometimes. Canadian chocolate cake.

Hey look! Missing scenes!

***

_This scene was originally in the body of the fanfic, but was of course jossed by the fifth-season opener. So I'm stashing it here. :)_

The explosion at Michael's creepy-as-fuck nursery for Teyla's unborn baby put Sheppard in the infirmary unconscious, killed three of the Marines, and nearly caused McKay the loss of an arm. Ronon vibrated with fury and nobody would go near him; he threw himself into the database in a frenzy and spent equal amounts of time running the city's pathways and hunching over a computer to glean anything he could about recent Wraith sightings and activity.

He was therefore totally unprepared for the message that popped up from Chuck on his tablet in the middle of the afternoon; it was a stark quick sentence:

unsch offwrld actv: idc temmagen

Ronon bolted for the Gateroom, arriving just in time to see a Wraith dartship emerging from the wormhole. Everyone in the room, Chuck included, had their firearms trained on it; as he joined them, the cockpit slid back and Teyla's tawny brown hair caught the light.

Ronon burst through the Marines and climbed the dart without waiting for it to land, clinging to the edge and pulling Teyla into an awkward half-in, half-out hug. She patted his cheek affectionately and then gave him a gentle shove.

"My people," she said quietly. "My people are -- stored...in the machine..."

Ronon leapt backwards and watched as the dart lifted into the air and a beam of white light produced a ragged gang -- a dozen, perhaps two dozen -- who looked around them in startled amazement. They were clinging to each other, huddled in a tight knot, a damaged but united tribe. The survivors of Athos; not more in number than the survivors of Sateda, but no longer scattered to the winds.

Ronon ran to the Jumper bay to greet Teyla properly, forehead-to-forehead, and then dragged her to the infirmary where Keller checked her over and then took her to see Sheppard and McKay. That was a good tribe too, the four of them; McKay holding onto Teyla tightly with his uninjured hand, her other resting on Sheppard's chest, Ronon leaning on the edge of Sheppard's bed while the infirmary outside the small room bustled with the healing and care of the rest of the Athosians.

***

_I have no idea where I was going with this, but the outline is fun._

Ronon was interested in anthropology, in an offhanded sort of way, and he had begun composing a mental list of the attributes of his immediate companions:

I. Athosians  
a. Quiet  
b. Badass  
c. Can't use contractions  
d. Hot

II. Earthers

a. United Stateians or Whatever  
i. Suicidal  
ii. Loyal  
iii. Noisy  
iv. Immature

b. Candians  
i. Smart  
ii. Tenacious  
iii. Sarcastic  
iv. Pretty good with guns, despite no natural inclination

c. Radek Zelenka

d. Other  
i. Afraid of him

***

_This was going to be an introduction to Ronon meeting Chuck's enormous highly Canadian family while on leave. I discarded it as being a trifle too domestic, but I like McKay's social philosophy._

Most of the permanent residents of Atlantis -- scientists who have been there for years, Marines who stayed on for a second tour or volunteered to finish their hitch on Atlantis -- were what McKay called "Earth Loners". Nearly everyone had some friends or family back on Earth, but the Earth Loners didn't have many, if they had any at all. Sheppard was an Earth Loner, and McKay; Cadman was an Earth Loner even if she wouldn't have admitted it to save her soul.

McKay expounded on his theory once and only once, perhaps because Sheppard had teased him about going in for the soft sciences. It contained an element of Social Darwinism and a lot of bitterness about what much have been a hard childhood: Earth Loners, by choice or circumstance, were people who had never fit in and in many cases never felt the need to. They were hesitant to trust, difficult to befriend, abrasive or socially awkward or simply more comfortable with solitude than their colleagues.

But in Atlantis they had to make friends and find a circle, find people to connect with, or they would die. Literally die, at the hands of the Wraith or during some city-wide catastrophe or for a million other reasons in the harsh and unforgiving Pegasus Galaxy. They formed deep, weirdly obsessive bonds with other Atlanteans, or they died, or they were gnawingly lonely and shipped back to Earth where at least there were things like Burger King and cable television.

***

_I couldn't resist writing an initiation ceremony._

Two days after the Daedalus arrived, Ronon was pulled out of sleep by someone knocking on his door. It was nearly midnight, which meant either disaster or McKay, who had no sense of time or timing.

When he opened the door it turned out to be not only McKay but Chuck and Colonel Carter and what looked like the entire Canadian contingent of Atlantis. Sheppard and Teyla were there too.

Ronon looked them up and down. Sheppard was holding what looked like a blindfold.

"We didn't think we could take you physically so we thought we'd ask politely," McKay said.

"Rite of passage," Ronon replied, nodding. "Cool."

They blindfolded him and took him through the corridors, into a transporter, and out to the cool Atlantean evening, Chuck's hand on his left elbow, Sheppard's on his right. When the blindfold came off again they were standing at the far tip of one of the piers, Atlantis glowing softly over their shoulders.

Colonel Carter cleared her throat and stepped forward.

"Repeat after me," she said. "I swear -- "

"I swear -- "

" -- that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance -- "

" -- that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance -- "

"-- to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada -- "

"-- to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada -- "

" -- Her Heirs and Successors -- "

" -- Her Heirs and Successors -- "

" -- and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada -- "

" -- and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada -- "

" -- and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen."

" -- and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen."

She smiled and stepped back, and McKay stepped up importantly, fixing him with his best glare. Ronon grinned at him and opened his mouth to speak before McKay could talk.

"Play is offside if a player on the attacking team enters the attacking zone before the puck itself, whether it is being carried by a teammate or sent into the attacking zone by an attacking player. When an offside violation occurs, the linesman blows the play dead and a faceoff is conducted in the neutral zone closest to where the offiside occurred."

McKay deflated slightly, but rallied pretty well; he pointed at Ronon sternly and said, "Don't forget it."

He stood back and waved Chuck forward resignedly.

"What'll it be, Ronon?" Chuck asked. "Service?"

Ronon shook his head. "McCrae."

A few of the Canadians blinked and shuffled forward; Sheppard tilted his head as if he were trying to place the name. Ronon took a breath.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly, scarce heard amid the guns below," he said, and then those who were confused looked startled or shocked.

"We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved, and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields."

Colonel Carter inhaled sharply.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe: to you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."

***

_I was tempted to give Ronon his own team. These fragmented scenes are the result._

"What?" Ronon asked, shoveling stew into his mouth.

"Specialist Dex," Sheppard said, and bit into an apple. "There comes a time in the life of every young man when papa bird has to push him out of the nest."

Ronon raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"

"Colonel Carter and I decided it was time to think about training some backup team members," Sheppard continued. "Plus we're down two team leaders since M5L-287, and not enough of the scientists are field-trained."

"We gettin' someone new?" Ronon asked.

"No. I'm promoting you."

"To what?"

"Team Leader," Sheppard said, and Ronon abruptly stopped eating. "You gotta get out there sometime. You deserve your own team."

Ronon wasn't sure what to say that wouldn't make him sound like a dork, so he kept quiet and breathed deeply through his nose.

"Uh. If you want to," Sheppard backpedaled uncertainly.

Ronon carefully leaned back, set down his fork, and nodded. "Yeah, okay."

***

Teyla told him to recruit at least one person who had manners and make sure everyone who joined could take orders.

McKay blew him off at first but eventually said he should pick someone intelligent and for god's sake not a linguist, because they were less than useless.

Sheppard advised him not to poach from other teams and to make sure when he asked people to join that they understood this was a favour as from god, belonging to Ronon's expedition team.

Colonel Carter told him to choose friends, and also people he didn't mind being naked in front of. Ronon could have told her that much already.

Lorne thought about it for a while and then said that he should have someone on his team for the others to protect. He could have told Lorne that, too.

***

"So you do science stuff," Ronon said to Chuck, sitting down at his table in the mess.

"You know, when Colonel Sheppard does the dumb-jock thing it's kind of endearing. When you try to pull it you just look like you're insecure," Chuck said. Ronon rolled his eyes.

"Okay. You have a double BA in electrical engineering and botany and an MA in mechanical engineering," Ronon said. Chuck blinked at him. "Tell me what BAs and MAs are."

"Who told you about my degrees?"

"I asked McKay."

"Well, uh. They're like specialist training, I guess," Chuck said. "I also have a self-taught doctorate in Gate technology, and if I knew any more about it than I do I'd probably be considered a danger to galactic security. Why do you want to know?"

"Wanna be on my team?" Ronon asked.

Chuck choked on the water he was drinking and set the cup down, wiping his mouth. Ronon knew the rumours had gone around about his team and how all the Marines were bucking to get on it and all the scientists were hoping he wouldn't tap one of them. He also knew, because he had good hearing, that none of the techs or engineers thought they were even in the running.

"Your offworld team?" Chuck asked, when he'd finally cleared his throat. "Really?"

"You can shoot," Ronon said. "And we need a guy who knows Gate tech and McKay has one of those mechanical engineering things too so it's gotta be useful."

"MA. Though I think his is one of the Ph.Ds," Chuck corrected. "I'm the head of my division, I dunno if Colonel Carter'll let me go."

"So're Zelenka and McKay and they go offworld." Ronon peered at him. "Look, if you don't want to -- "

"No! I do! Totally, I do, dibs, called it, shotgun, I do," Chuck blurted.

***

Ronon deliberately intimidated Dr. Brighton into joining the team, because Brighton was small and couldn't shoot and was terrified of Ronon and in addition to being The One They Could Protect it was obvious that it would be terrifically character-building for him.

***

Dex's team came back from their first mission, supposedly a dry-run to a planet with a bustling market and no crazy cultists, wearing bandages.

"Seriously, I thought you didn't need supervision," Sheppard said, standing in the doorway of the locker room.

"I tried to talk them out of it," Brighton said, pulling his shirt off. There was a white bandage on his shoulderblade. Ronon scratched the tape on his collarbone and grinned.

"What did you do?" McKay demanded, sitting on a bench and studying the data Chuck had brought back.

"Team thing," Ronon replied. Chuck tugged at the bandage on his own collarbone and tilted his head back.

"Cool," Sheppard said, looking interested.

"Blood _poisoning!_ " McKay exclaimed.

"I cleared it," Brighton replied. "We probably won't die."

"We?"

"Ronon said it's regimental," Diers informed them, brushing past Sheppard and tossing her vest on the rack. Brighton hauled his pants up quickly. "Oh relax, you're a doctor, you're not allowed to be modest."

"Regimental," McKay said skeptically, craning his head forward to study the small black tattoo on Chuck's collarbone. "Right."


End file.
